Washington Irving: The Headless Horseman,’ and gang, get their own songs

Linda Quinlan, staff writer

Wednesday

Jun 25, 2008 at 12:01 AMJun 25, 2008 at 12:10 AM

Music teacher John Gaspar composed and arranged 20 songs, all based on Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” for a fourth and fifth-grade chorus last year.

Music teacher John Gaspar, marking his return to directing the Washington Irving School chorus in the 2006-07 school year, wanted to do something special. Gaspar is a teacher, musician and composer, so of course that meant an original piece of music.

American author Washington Irving is the namesake of the school and best-known for “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle.” The message of the latter is kind of “You snooze, you lose,” Gaspar said, so he decided to take a closer look at Sleepy Hollow.

“I decided there was enough in the story to capture the children’s imagination,” Gaspar said.

He started composing in summer 2006, using music notation software that includes a keyboard hooked up to his home computer.

By February 2007, Gaspar’s “gargantuan project” had become a choral cantata, a 20-movement setting of prose excerpted from the classic Irving story about superstitious schoolmaster Ichabod Crane, his pursuit by a ghostly Headless Horseman and more.

The massive project was premiered last May, and was so successful that a permanent recording was made.

Now the school with Irving’s name is closing.

“To me, the kids are a significant part of our history ... and because of the scale, level of difficulty and student accompaniment, this was a significant project,” Gaspar said.
For him and for the kids, who learned a bit more about history and literature than most chorus students do.

“I didn’t want to water it down,” Gaspar said. But since some of the language in the tale, first published in 1820, was obtuse, he developed vocabulary lists for his students, all in grades four and five.

“There were a lot of old words,” said fifth-grader Michael Masetta, 11, “probably because it was from a long time ago.”

Here’s how he judged the success of the project, Gaspar said: No one dropped out of chorus during preparations, and their behavior was very attentive and good. Even though , as Michael noted, chorus seemed more like reading class for a time.

With the help of two professional singers, Gaspar started chorus rehearsals with his 65 students in December 2007. He had separate, lunchtime rehearsals for students to learn to play such instruments as the xylophone, glockenspiel and metallaphone.
One advanced student, Allison Larter, a sixth-grader now, provided additional percussion, and music colleague Jennifer Simonetti played the flute.

“Singing a book was really weird,” confessed fifth-grader Zoey Cieslinski, 11, “but it was also cool.”

Classmate Blake Langdon added that he thought it was really fascinating that his teacher “created a series of songs from a whole book.”

It’s one more cherished memory they and classmates will take to their new schools next fall.

Gaspar, in his 13th year with the district, will be settling into a new school himself. He’ll be heading to Florence Brasser, the district’s remaining elementary school, next fall, where he will teach chorus, band and general music to students in grades three to five.

“I plan to throw myself into the new school next year,” he said, explaining that because he thinks he’ll need the energy, he recently retired after his 29th year as director of music at Holy Cross Church in Charlotte. He also taught at the school there before coming to Washington Irving.

Gaspar, who resides in Greece but recently purchased a home in Gates, also plays the harp and arranges music for the Sampler Trio, which includes musicians Mitzie Collins, Roxanne Ziegler and Glennda Dove. He grew up in Rochester and earned his master’s degree in music from the Eastman School of Music.

Sitting in his large, light-filled music room at Washington Irving School, he looks around and sighs: “If I could chop it off and bring it with me, I would.”

He’s still thinking ahead to his next composition.

“I have my eyes on ‘The Velveteen Rabbit,’” he said, “but for now I’m just happy with how true I felt I was to Washington Irving. ... After all, who am I to improve on a great American author?”